Hi everyone. I am an author writing a young adult series about a boy who can control his autonomic nervous system (he can control his heart rate, flood his system with adrenaline, heal himself, grow nerves, etc.). In this universe, there are a select number of people who share his abilities, but this boy is the only one who can regenerate nerves in the central nervous system. Of course, I have to take liberties with fact to make these things "true," but I'm trying to base my explanations in science as much as possible. In explaining why this boy is different from his peers (why he can regenerate, say, nerves in the spinal cord as opposed to just a nerve in his finger), I'm leaning towards saying that he is genetically coded to produce a certain protein. That protein allows him to grow CNS nerves. Am I even on the right track? I've done research on the brain and the nervous system, but I do not have a science background and seem to have hit my research limit of understanding. On another science forum, someone said to look up "neurogenic protein." I read ten different abstracts of articles regarding experiments in this area, and it's just beyond me. I'm writing for ages 14 and up - I want it to be believable, credible, but still fairly basic. Any thoughts? I greatly appreciate your time and suggestions. Andrea Ring
Sounds interesting. This is a wiki link on regeneration. Particularly interesting is the section on amphibians. This is a good jumping off point for you to investigate and incorporate this idea into your story. LINK
Thank you, origin! You'd think it would have occurred to me to Google "regeneration"...this opens up a lot of possibilities. Looks like stem cells are the key. I so appreciate your time.
